Taylor in charge at Goodison

Anthony Taylor will referee our Boxing Day game against Everton at Goodison Park in what will be his first Burnley game since his dreadful performance in last season’s 1-1 home draw against Southampton.

Quite how on earth he didn’t award us a penalty when Saints’ goalkeeper Alex McCarthy took out Ashley Barnes remains a total mystery as does his failure to take any action against the ranting Barnes who, I think it is fair to say, was not happy with the decision.

He refereed us three times last season, all of them at home, and didn’t get a Burnley match at all throughout the 2017/18 season. That means this will be his first Burnley away game since another shocker of a day when he awarded us a penalty at Swansea when Sam Vokes handled the ball and then allowed the late Swansea winner by Fernando Llorente when there was a clear foul.

He’s had a series of poor games refereeing Burnley. and it is no surprise to see him down as low as 15th in RATE THE REF with a rating of just 59.34 out of 10. It’s not just Burnley games though, he didn’t have the best of games when he took charge of the Spurs v Chelsea game three days ago when twice his decisions were overturned by VAR and you have to wonder just how he failed to see yet another goalkeeper giving away a penalty. Incredibly he gave diving against Barnes and yellow carded him in that Southampton game, here he gave the foul the other way.

One thing very likely at Everton is that we will see his yellow card on view. The last time he had a card free game was in early December last year and he’s already totalled 121 yellows and five reds this season although 45 yellows and two reds have come in eight non-domestic games.

That still leaves 76 yellows and three reds in 15 domestic games, all of which have been in the Premier League. Of those yellows, 36 have gone to home team players and 40 to away team players. The first of the three red cards he’s shown domestically came at Goodison when he sent off Wolves’ Willy Boly in Everton’s 3-2 win. More recently he dismissed Crystal Palace defender Mamadou Sakho in their 1-0 win against Bournemouth.

That last red card was not his decision. He showed the red card to Tottenham’s Son Heung-min but only following intervention from VAR. Home goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga’s yellow card was also courtesy of VAR while his team mates Toby Aldereiweld, Moussa Sissoko and Dele Alli were also yellow carded. Chelsea’s Antonior Rudiger, Kurt Zouma and Mateo Kovacic took the yellow card count to seven.

That’s Taylor and he will have Jeremy Simpson on the touchline as fourth official who has never refereed a Burnley game. Paul Tierney is on VAR duty and he last refereed Burnley recently at Watford when our key second goal was via a VAR awarded penalty.